Chapter 20

(18) because it plainly proves that the cult prevailed not merely at here and there a spring, but in Germany's greatest river. From the Italian's unacquaintance with the rite, one might infer that it was foreign to the country whence all church ceremonies proceeded, and therefore altogether unchristian and heathenish. But Petrarch may not have had a minute knowledge of all the customs of his country; after his time at all events we find even there a lustration on St. John's day [described as an ancient custom then dying out]. Benedict de Falco's Descrizione de luoghi antiqui di Napoli (Nap. 1580) has the statement: 'in una parte populosa della citta giace la chiesa consegrata a S. Giovan battista, chiamata S. Giovan a mare. Era una antica usanza, hoggi non al tutto lasciata, che la vigilia di S. Giovane, verso la sera e 'l securo del di, tutti huomini e donne andare al mare, e nudi lavarsi; persuasi purgarsi de loro peccati, alla focchia degli antichi, che peccando andavano al Tevere lavarsi.' And long before Petrarch, in Augustine's time, the rite was practised in Libya, and is denounced by that Father as a relic of paganism: 'natali Johannis, de solemnitate superstitiosa pagana, Christiani ad mare veniebant, et se baptizabant' (Opp., Paris 1683, tom. 5, p. 903); and again: 'ne ullus in festivitate S. Johannis in fontibus aut paludibus aut in fluminibus, nocturnis aut matutinis horis se lavare praesumat, quia haec infelix consuetudo adhuc de Paganorum observatione remansit' (Append. to tome. 5 p. 462). Generally snctioned by the church it certainly was not, yet it might be allowed here and there, as a not unapt reminder of the Baptizer in the Jordan, and now interpreted of him, though once it had been heathen. It might easily come into extensive favour, and that not as a christian feast alone: to our heathen forefathers St. John's day would mean the festive middle of the year, when the sun turns, and there might be many customs attached with it. I confess, if Petrarch had witnessed the bathing in the river at some small town, I would the sooner take it for a native rite of the ancient Germani; at Cologne, the holy city is renowned for its relics, I rather suspect it to be a custom first introduced by christian tradition (see Suppl.). (19)

There are lakes and springs whose waters periodically rise and fall: from either phenomenon mischief is prognosticated, a death, war, approaching dearth. When the reigning prince is about to die, the river is supposed to stop in its course, as if to indicate its grief (Deut. sag. no. 110); if the well runs dry, the head of the family will die soon after (no. 103). A spring that either runs over or dries up, foreboding dearth, is called hungerquelle, hungerbrunnen (Stald. 2, 63). Wössingen near Durlach has a hungerbrunnen, which is said to flow abundantly when the year is going to be unfruitful, and then also the fish it produces are small. (20) Such a hunger-spring there was by Halle on the Saale; when the peasants came up to town, they looked at it, and if it ran over, they said: 'this year, things 'll be dear.' The like is told of fountains near Rosia in the Siennese, and near Chateaudun in the Orleanese. As Hunger was personified, it was easyu to make him meddle with springs. A similar Nornborn was noticed, p. 405. I insert Dietmar of Merseburg's report (1, 3) of lake Glomazi in the Slav parts of the Elbe valley: 'Glomazi (21) est fons non plus ab Albi quam duo milliaria positus, qui unam de se paludem generans, mira, ut incolae pro vero asserunt oculisque approbatum est a multis, saepe operatur. Cum bona pax indigenis profutura suumque haec terra non mentitur fructum, tritico et avena ac glandine refertus, laetos vicinorum ad se crebro confluentium efficit animos. Quando autem saeva belli tempestas ingruerit, sanguine et cinere certum futuri exitus indicium praemonstrat. Hunc omnis incola plus quam ecclesias, spe quamvis dubia, veneratur et timet.' (22) But apart from particular fountains, by a mere guaging of water a season of dearth or plenty, an increase or decrease of wealth may be divined, according as the water poured into a vessel rises or falls (Superst. F, 43; and no. 953 in Praetor's Saturnalien p. 407). This looks to me like a custom of high antiquity. Saxo Gram. p. 320 says, the image of the god Svantovit in Rügen held in its right hand a horn: 'quod sacerdos sacrorum ejus peritus annuatim mero perfundere consueverat, ex ipso liquoris habitu sequentis anni copias prospecturus.........Postero die, populo prae foribus excubante, detractum simulacro poculum curiosius speculatus, si quid ex inditi liquoris mensura substractum fuisset, ad sequentis anni inopiam pertinere putabat. Si nihil ex consuetae foecunditatis habitu diminutum vidisset, ventura agrorum ubertatis tempora praedicabat.' The wine was emptied out, and water poured into the horn (see Suppl.).

Whirlpools and waterfalls were doubtless held in special veneration; they were thought to be put in motion by a superior being, a river-sprite. The Danube whirlpool and others still have separate legends of their own. Plutarch (in his Cæsar, cap. 19) and Clement of Alex. (Stromat. 1, 305) assure us that the German prophetesses watched the eddies of rivers, and by their whirl and noise explored the future. The Norse name for such a vortex is fors, Dan. fos, and the Isl. sög. 1, 226 expressly say, 'blôtaði forsin (worshipped the f.).' The legend of the river-sprite fossegrim was touched upon, p. 493; and in such a fors dwelt the dwarf Andvari (Sæm. 180. Fornald. sög. 1, 152). But animal sacrifices seem to have been specially due to the whirlpool (dinoj, as the black lamb (or goat) to the fossegrim; and the passages quoted from Agathias on pp. 47, 100, about the Alamanns offering horses to the rivers and ravines, are to the same purpose. The Iliad 21, 131 says of the Skamander: w dh dhqa poleij iereuete taurouj, zwouj d en dinhsi kaqiete mwnucaj ippouj (Lo, to the river this long time many a bull have ye hallowed, Many a whole-hoofed horse have ye dropped alive in his eddies); and Pausan. viii. 7, 2: to de arcaion kaqiesan ej thn Deinhn (a water in Argolis, conn. with dinoj) tw Poseidwni ippouj oi Apgeioi kekosmenouj calinoij. Horace, Od. 3, 13: O fons Baundusiae, non sine floribus cras donaberis haedo (see Suppl.).

It is pretty well known, that even before the introduction of Christianity or christian baptism, the heathen Norsemen had a hallowing of new-born infants by means of water; they called this vatni ausa, sprinkling with water. Very likely the same ceremony was practised by all other Teutons, and they may have ascribed a peculiar virtue to the water used in it, as Christians do to baptismal water (Superst. Swed. 116). After a christening, the Esthonians will bribe the clerk to let them have the water, and then splash it up against the walls, to secure honours and dignities for the child (Superst. M, 47).

It was a practice widely prevalent to turn to strange superstitious uses the water of the millwheel caught as it glanced off the paddles. Old Hartlieb mentions it (Superst. H. c. 60), and vulgar opinion approves it still (Sup. I, 471. 766). The Servians call such water omaya, rebound, from omanuti, omakhnuti, to rebound. Vuk, under the word, observes that women go early on St. George's day (Apr. 23), to catch it, especially off a small brookmill (kashitchara), and bathe in it. Some carry it home the evening before, and sprinkle it with all manner of broken greens: they think all evil and harm will then glance off their bodies like the water off the millwheel (Vuk sub v. Jurjev dan). Similar, though exactly the reverse, is the warning not to flirt the water off your hands after washing in the morning, else you flirt away your luck for the day (Sup. I, 21).

Not only brooks and rivers (p. 585), but rain also was in the childlike faith of antiquity supposed to be let fall out of bowls by gods of the sky; and riding witches are still believed to carry pitchers, out of which they pour storm and hail upon the plains, instead of the rain or dew that trickled down before. (23)

When the heavens were shut, and the fields languished in drought, the granting of rain depended in the first instance on a deity, on Donar, or Mary and Elias, who were supplicated accordingly (pp. 173-6). (24) But in addition to that, a special charm was resorted to, which infallibly procured 'rainwater,' and in a measure compelled the gods to grant it. A little girl, completely undressed and led outside the town, had to dig up henbane (bilsenkraut, OHG. pilisa, hyoscyamus) with the little finger of her right hand, and tie it to the little toe of her right foot; she was then solemnly conducted by the other maidens to the nearest river, and splashed with water. This ceremony, reported by Burchard of Worms (Sup. C, 201b) and therefore perhaps still in use on the Rhine or in Hesse in the 11^th cent., comes to us with the more weight, as, with characteristic differences which put all direct borrowing out of the question, it is still in force among Swervians and Mod. Greeks. Vuk, under the word 'dodole,' describes the Servian custom. A girl, called the dodola, is stript naked, but so wrapt up in grass, herbs and flowers, that nothing of her person is to be seen, not even the face. (25) Escorted by other maidens, dodola passes from house to house, before each house they form a ring, she standing in the middle and dancing alone. The goodwife comes out and empties a bucket of water over the girl, who keeps dancing and whirling all the while; her companions sing songs, repeating after every line the burden 'oy dodo, oy dodo le!' The second of these rain-hymns (piesme dodolske) in Vuk's Coll. nos. 86-88 (184-8 of ed. 2) runs thus:

To God doth our doda call, oy dodo oy dodo le!

That dewy rain may fall, oy dodo oy dodo le!

And drench the diggers all, oy dodo oy dodo le!

The workers great and small, oy dodo oy dodo le!

Even those in house and stall, oy dodo oy dodo le!
And they are sure that rain will come at once. In Greece, when it has not rained for a fortnight or three weeks, the inhabitants of villages and small towns do as follows. The children choose one of themselves who is from eight to ten years old, usually a poor orphan, whom they strip naked and deck from head to foot with field herbs and flowers: this child is called purphrouna. The others lead her round the village, singing a hymn, and every housewife has to throw a pailful of water over the pyrperuna's head, and hand the children a para (1/4 of a farthing). The Mod. Greek hymn is in Theod. Kind's tragwdia thj neaj Eggadoj, Leipz. 1833, p. 13. Passow, nos. 311-3, p. 627. Neither Greek nor Slavic will explain why the rain-girl should be called dodola (caressingly doda) and purphrouna. (26) Burchard very likely could have given us a German designation equally inscrutable. But the meaning of the performance is clear: as the water from the bucket on the dodola, so is rain our ot heaven to stream down on the earth; it is the mystic and genuinely symbolic association of means with end. Just so the rebound off the millwheel was to send evil flying, and the lustration in the stream to wash away all future illnesses. Celtic tradition, without bringing in girl or child, makes the pouring out of water in seasons of great drought evoke the wished-for rain. The huntsmen go to the fountain of Barenton in the forest of Breziliande, scoop up the water in their horns, and spill it on the stones; immediately the rain-clouds rise and refresh the land. (27) The custom, with an addition of church ceremonial, is kept up to this day. Led by the clergy, amid changing and pealing of bells, with five great banners borne in front, the parish walks in procession to the spring, and the head of the commune dips his foot crosswise in the fountain of Barenton; they are then sure of its raining before the procession arrives home again. (28) The mayor's foot alone is wetted instead of the child, or a little water only is poured out as a beginning of that which is to fall in masses from the sky. The scanty offering brings the great bounty to our door. In Spain, when hot weather lasts long, an image of the Virgin arrayed in mourning (imagen cubierta de luto) is solemly escorted through the villages, to obtain the blessing of rain, (29) as in the Liège procession (pp. 174-5), with which again that described by Petronius agrees (p. 175); only here they symbolic libation is left out. But of those herbs that were tied round the child, some most likely were of magic power; such a use of henbane is otherwise unknown to me. Lastly, the Bavarian waterbird seems identical with dodola and pyrperuna. The man who is the last to drive out on Whitmonday (30) is led by the other workmen into the nearest wood, and tied round and round with leaves and twigs or rushes; then they ride in triumph through the village, and everybody that has young legs follows the procession to the pond or brook, where the waterbird is solemnly tumbled off his horse into the water (Schm. 1, 320). In Austria too the village lads elect a Whitsun king, dress him up in green boughs, blacken his face and pitch him into the brook (Denis, Lesefr. 1, 130). In these two cases the 'votis vocare imbrem' has dropt out altogether, and been replaced by a mere Whitsun drollery at the cost of the laziest man; (31) but I have little doubt that the same purpose lies at the bottom of the custom (see Suppl.).




ENDNOTES:

18. This raising of a storm by throwing stones into a lake or wellheadis a Teutonic, a Celtic and a Finnish superstition, as the examples quoted show. The watersprite avenges the desecration of his holy stream. Under this head come the stories of the Mummelsee (Deut. sag. no. 59. Simplic. 5, 9), of the Pilatussee (Lothar's Volkssag. 232. Dobenek 2, 118. Gutslaff p. 288. Mone's Anz. 4, 423), of L. Camarina in Sicily (Camarinam movere), and above all, of Berenton well in Breziliande forest, Iwein 553-672, where however it is the well-water poured on the well-rock that stirs up the storm: conf. supra, p. 594, and the place in Pontus mentioned by Beneke, p. 269. The lapis manalis also conjured up rain, O. Müller's Etr. 2, 97. [Back]

19. The people about L. Baikal believe it has no bottom. A priest, who could dive to any depth, tried it, but was so frightened by the lôs (dragons, sea-monsters), that, if I remember rightly, he died raving mad.---Trans. [Back]

20. A short account of the holy brook (falsely so called) Wöhhanda in Liefland, whereby the ungodly burning of Sommerpahl mill came to pass. Given from Christian zeal against unchristian and heathenish superstition, by Joh. Gutslaff, Pomer. paster at Urbs in Liefland. Dorpt 1644 (8vo, 407 pp. without the Dedic. and Pref.). An extract in Kellgren (Suomi 9, 72-92). [Back]

21. Fr. Thiersch in Taschenbuch für liebe und freundschaft 1809, p. 179. Must not Eim be the same as Embach (mother-beck, fr. emma mother, conf. öim mother-in-law) near Dorpat, whose origin is reported as follows? When God had created heaven and earth, he wished to bestow on the beasts a king, to keep them in order, and commanded them to dig for his reception a deep broad beck, on whose banks he might walk; the earth dug out of it was to make a hill for the king to live on. All the beasts set to work, the hare measured the land, the fox's brush trailing after him marked the course of the stream; when they had finished hollowing out the bed, God poured water into it out of his golden bowl (Verhandl. der esthn. gesellschaft, Dorpat 1840. 1, 40-42). The two stories differ as to the manner of preparing the new bed. [Back]

22. The Romans appear to have much elaborated their cultus of rivers and brooks, as may be seen by the great number of monuments erected to river-gods. I will here add the testimony of Tacitus, Ann. 1, 79: 'sacra et lucos et aras patriis amnibus dicare.' [Back]

23. Gallus Ohem's Chronik von Reichenau (end of 15^th cent.) quoted in Schönbuth's Reichenau, Freib. 1836, p.v. : 'the isle is to this day esteemed honourable and holy; unchristened babes are not buried in it, but carried out and laid beside a small house with a saint's image in it, called the chindli-bild. [Back]

24. Names for it, Gramm. 3, 352; Eddic names, Sæm. 50b, Sn. 187-8. [Back]

25. Ignorant scribes made it metfratres, the Capitularia spuria Benedicti 1, 2 (Pertz iv. 2, 46) have nedfratres. [Back]

26. Rector of Wolfenbüttel school, v. Gericke's Schottelius illustratus, Leipz. 1718, p. 66. Eccard's Fr. or. 1, 425. [Back]

27. Zeitschr. des hess. vereins 2, 281. [Back]

28. Not a word about sheep: supposing cocks and hens were likewise hunted over the coals, it would explain a hitherto unexplained proverb (Reinhart xciv.). [Back]

29. Is there not also a brand or some light carried home for a redistribution of fire in the village? [Back]

30. Büsching's Wöchentliche nachr. 4, 64; so a chaste youth has to strike the light for curing St. Anthony's fire, Superst. I, 710. [Back]

31. Conf. Conring's Epist. ad Baluz. xiii. Gericke's Schottel. p. 70. Dähnert sub v. noodfür. [Back]